I ask your attention for a few minutes to some observations upon the Monroe Doctrine. If I am justified in taking your time it will be not because I say anything novel, but because there is occasion for restating well settled matters which seem to have been overlooked in some recent writings on the subject.

We are all familiar with President Monroe’s famous message of December 2, 1823.

The building of the Panama Canal has not been a one man’s work by any means. In its inception the preparation of the field, the elimination of impossible routes, and in the actual construction work, it has drawn forth some of the best brains of the country.

Noted engineers from civil life have had an important influence in determining the locality best suited for the purpose, and also in the plans adopted for building the canal; and the names of these men will go down in history as a part of its constructive force. But as the principal object of building the canal was to augment means for the national defence, it was eminently proper that the Army and Navy of the United States should have paramount influence in its establishment. For nearly forty years naval men have been engaged in surveying different parts of Central America and the Isthmus of Panama to find a practical route which should offer the fewest obstacles in cutting a channel between the two oceans. Finally, by a process of elimination, which brought the problem to a choice between the Nicaragua and Panama routes, the construction of a canal was actually begun by an American company on the Nicaragua line, and the work of construction put in the charge of naval officers.

Among the most noteworthy phenomena of modern times are the extensive exploitation of new and thinly settled countries by citizens of countries older and more thoroughly developed, and the vast increase in international trade. These movements are, of course, due largely to the improved facilities for travel and communication, which have brought nations together and made their interests coincide in a way and to an extent unknown to former generations. One of the resulting problems is the question as to the attitude which a given country is to take towards its citizens who have settled permanently in foreign lands, without any definite intention of obtaining naturalization as citizens thereof, and particularly whether it is to undertake to extend its protection to them, and, if so, to what extent.

The extradition conventions of the United States, from the Jay treaty concluded with Great Britain November 19th, 1794, down to the present time have, with a single exception, contained the requirement that the surrender of a fugitive should be conditioned upon the production and presentation to the country of asylum of such evidence of criminality as would, according to the law of the place where the accused might be found, justify his apprehension and commitment for trial. This implies, therefore, that the conduct of the accused must have been such as to violate the criminal laws of the country of asylum. Only upon such a theory could he be there held for commitment and trial.

So much has been written regarding the origin of the Monroe Doctrine and on the supposed effects of the various causes contributing to its origin, toward its application at various times to different situations, that the only excuse that can be offered for discussing this phase of it must be to cover it from some fresh point of view.

The distinguished Peruvian diplomatist and author, Dr. Anibal Maúrtua, on page 20 of his book La Idea Panamericana y la cuestión de Arbitraje, published in Lima in 1901, refers to President Monroe’s message of December 2, 1823, announcing the Monroe Doctrine, as a “Pan-American Declaration.” The great Argentine international jurist, Carlos Calvo, called it “declaratory of complete American independence,” and the Peruvian author, Carlos Arenas y Loayza, states in his excellent monograph on the Monroe Doctrine, published in Lima in 1905, that “the Monroe Doctrine is linked with our past and with our present, and gives us the key of the future of these Republics, considered in relation to the events of our times and the indications of the future; which republics, extending over the same continent, form one sole body, are called on to have one and the same spirit and to work in accord, in edifying friendship for justice and peace on earth.”

Chapter 3, devoted to unneutral service, has only three articles; but they are important and were debated perhaps with more spirit than any other articles of the Declaration. The general subject is one which has been treated by Lord Stowell in a series of masterly judgments, and it is believed that an examination of two or three of them would form the best introduction to this chapter.